A. Heuristic? Well, it's from the Greek -- it's a
method of discovery. It's something that helps you imagine
situations so that you can come up with hypotheses in science.
It's a term that's widely used in the philosophy of science. It
originates with William Whewell, who is another author of one of
those Bridgewater treatises that I mentioned earlier.

MR. GILLEN: It's not within his expertise. He
hasn't been qualified in education. Even if he was an expert, he
can't speculate as to how a student would see it.

THE COURT: Well, he's not been offered as an
expert in the education realm, but I think it's a fair inquiry
based on the latitude that I gave during his testimony in chief.
So I'll overrule the objection. He can answer the question.

THE WITNESS: I actually think it's more ambiguous
what's going on there. I mean, you seem to imply that there is
this kind of gradation going from theory to fact. I kind of read
it a bit more straight. You know, namely, a theory is not a fact,
it's something else.

Q. And on Line 6, Mr. Rothschild asked you, A
theory is not going to graduate into a fact; right? And the
answer was, Right, exactly, exactly. No, I mean, I do think there
is -- that the tone of the statement is a little confusing. I
mean, so I'm agreeing with Miller on that point. Did I read that
correctly?

A. Let me just see this for a second. But what I'm
agreeing with Miller on is, I can understand why he sort of sees
it that way. I wasn't necessarily saying that I had some
definitive view about what the statement meant, but rather that I
was sympathetic to -- you know, I could see where he was coming
from in finding this problematic. That's all I was saying. I can,
you know, understand him.

Q. Well, let me direct your attention to the first
line on Page 111 where it says -- and this is your answer, and
certainly you can refer back at the question. But let me just
read that portion of your answer. It says, But I was agreeing
with the fact that the statement did look, did seem to want to
denigrate something by being called a theory as if being a fact
would be the really epistemically significant thing. Right? Did I
read that correctly?

Q. And so that's what you testified to in your
deposition on June 21st?

A. Well, I did say that, but I don't know. I mean,
I didn't necessarily -- I mean, I guess I was just kind of
following through Miller's thinking and sort of rethinking his
thoughts and thinking it did make sense what he was saying.

But I wasn't making -- I mean, keep in mind this
was the first time I had actually seen this Dover statement
during the deposition to any great extent, so I was kind of
forming opinions as we went along.

Q. So that would be very similar to what the
students are experiencing, because they're only seeing the
statement for a snapshot?

A. Yeah, but, I mean, the students don't come into
it with the kind of baggage Miller and I have.

Q. And you also have expressed a problem in the
fourth paragraph. Matt, if you could put 131 back on, please. If
you could highlight the fourth paragraph, please. And you said
you thought this was kind of a, quote, downbeat ending, because
what we should be doing is trying to encourage students that
science is fascinating and interesting, not that it has to --

A. Well, if you are, can you tell me where it is?
Because I'd like to know --

THE COURT: The way it works, Doctor, just so that
we're all clear, Mr. Walczak will ask you a question. If he sees
the need to access your deposition testimony, then he'll do that
following the question, but he's not bound to relate the question
to the deposition testimony in the first instance.

So I'll ask Mr. Walczak, since we've cleared up
that confusion, why don't you restate your question. And this is
not a question that is necessarily grounded -- it may or may not
be -- in something that you said at the deposition, and it's not
a question that calls for you to access the deposition testimony.
So with that, Mr. Walczak, if you would resubmit your
question.

Q. I really am just interested in your testimony
today, Professor Fuller. So you think that the ending of this
four-paragraph statement is downbeat because what we really
should be doing is trying to encourage students that science is
fascinating and interesting and not that it has to be taught
because of the standards. Is that correct?

A. Yeah. But if this is going to be the only way
they can actually end up allowing intelligent design as a
possibility, then one lives with it. I wasn't a party to how this
statement was drawn up. So there's a sense in which I don't know
what the alternative possibilities were of which this was the one
that we now see before us.

Q. Well, certainly they could have said something
about how science is wonderful and marvelous and you should take
great joy in studying this, instead of simply saying, we have to
study this because it's in the standards?

A. I guess unless I knew what the options were in
terms of what alternative versions of this statement were on the
table, I could make a clear judgment on that, because it seems to
me at the end of the day what is good about the statement is that
it actually does present an alternative that's available. And if
this is the only way they could have done it, then, you know, so
be it. I'm not a party to the discussion.

Q. And so you would presume that the purpose of
reading this four-paragraph statement is to provide information
to students about this alternative of intelligent design, and
this is a way of promoting open-mindedness about science and
exploring different views, I mean, really everything that you
talked about in your direct testimony today?

Q. But you're also aware, are you not now, that,
in fact, under the Dover policy, students are not allowed to ask
questions about this statement or about intelligent design and
teachers are not allowed to discuss it? Is that your
understanding?

Q. Actually, you could start on 141 on Line 20. It
says, Superintendent Dr. Richard Nilsen has directed that no
teacher will teach intelligent design, creationism, or present
his or her or the board's religious beliefs.

Well, let me just help you out. And then the next
question is, How is the objective you discussed accomplished if
students are simply being told, here's intelligent design, but
then they're not allowed to discuss it? And then your answer is,
I didn't -- well, I'm endorsing this view -- I'm not responsible
for this view. I don't, at least as far as I understand, I don't
endorse this. Now, did I read your answer correctly there?

A. Let me see if I understand what I said. What
I'm saying is, this is not how I would handle it. That's what I'm
saying. But, you know, I'm not there. And if this is the only way
this statement -- it's going to make this possibility available,
it's going to come about, then one lives with it. But I'm just
saying, you know, this is not what I would do, but I'm not part
of the Dover School Board.

Q. Okay. Let's go back to Page 140 and Line 17 so
we know exactly what --

Q. And this is what you're talking about promoting
in Dover. It says, Namely, we're talking about how to take
science forward in the future, and it seems to me we sort of
betray kind of the open-mindedness that we take to be -- you
know, we take science to exemplify as a hallmark of our
civilization if we don't -- you know, if we don't present
students with the possibility that science is something that's
still very open for very fundamental forms of inquiry. And the
best way to do that is to show how one might study something like
life starting with fundamentally different assumptions from the
taken-for-granted view, because otherwise we're stuck with just
teaching dogma science. Did I read that correctly?

Q. And then back on Page 142, Mr. Rothschild asked
you, So the Dover policy of simply making students -- of telling
students about intelligent design but not -- then not allowing
them, allowing the teacher to talk about it doesn't accomplish
the objective? And your response was, It defeats the purpose,
yes, that's true, yes. Now, did I read your answer correctly?

A. Yes. But defeats does not mean obliterate here.
It certainly undercuts the impact that it can have, but it's
better than nothing.

A. Well, you might say as a philosopher I'm
professionally dissatisfied with all explanations that claim to
be final. And so there is going to be a special suspicion sort of
drawn toward the taken-for-granted theories in any given
discipline.

Q. So you're not saying that intelligent design is
the correct or the better explanation for biological life?

A. No, I'm not. I'm certainly not. They're not --
they haven't developed it enough to really be in a position to
make any kind of definitive judgment of that kind.

Q. So you think it's just worth something that we
should be pursuing further?

A. Well, yes, and that there have to be some
conditions put in place in order for it to happen. It's not just
going to happen spontaneously.

Q. So is it fair to say that you're involved in
this case more because you're interested in the philosophical
value of intelligent design challenging the current scientific
dogma, sort of the loyal opposition, than being committed to the
doctrine of intelligent design itself?

A. Well, I don't know. I want to see where
intelligent design goes, frankly. I mean, you know, again, it's
hard to make a judgment. But I do think that when you get to a
situation in science where one theory is very dominant and so
taken for granted that people don't even feel they have to, you
know, defend it anymore, then that's kind of bad news
epistemologically, just generally speaking. And it's that, in
itself, that's worthwhile to support some kind of opposition
candidate, in a sense. But what that opposition candidate does,
you have to give it some time to develop, and then you can make
further judgments whether it was a good bet or not.

Q. And if you could look about halfway down that
paragraph, there's a sentence that starts, Third. And I'm going
to read it. It says, Third, ID's rejection of naturalism and
commitment to supernaturalism does not make it unscientific. Did
I read that correctly?

A. Yes, I understand. But, what, is this like my
total view about what ID is committed to? No, it's not my total
view. But I do believe that ID is open to supernaturalism. But
it's not exclusively supernatural, it's just with respect to this
dichotomy.

Q. But it has a commitment to supernaturalism and
to introducing it into the scientific community?

A. I mean, a commitment doesn't necessarily mean
it's trying to impose it, but rather that it's something that it
is open to and, in fact, is distinctive about it.

Q. Could you turn to Page 10 of your report. And
the first sentence -- actually second full sentence in that first
paragraph, On the one hand, it is true that ID wishes to pursue
research that might eventuate in design-based explanations of the
natural world that fall afoul of the naturalistic presuppositions
of contemporary biological science. Did I read that
correctly?

A. Yes, but the thing here is, what
supernaturalistic boils down to -- I mean, supernaturalistic just
means not explainable in the naturalistic terms. Right? It means
involving some kind of intelligence or mind that's not reducible
to ordinary natural categories. Okay?

So that's the sense in which I'm using
supernaturalistic. I'm not saying, you know, they're committed to
ghosts or something. See, I'm not sure what exactly -- but that's
how I -- I understand supernaturalistic in this fairly broad
sense.

A. Well, as not naturalistic, given what we take
to be naturalistic now in science. Because in the past, things
that we now consider to be naturalistic in science were not
regarded as such. Right? So that's the basic point I'm trying to
make here.

A. Yeah, in terms of -- well, of this world,
nature as it is understood within the context of natural
science.

Q. And here you're talking about broadening that
definition beyond natural causation and to supernatural
causation?

A. Yes. And what I'm talking about there, yes, is
going beyond the taken-for-granted categories. I mean, this has
happened in the history of science and does periodically, where
things that people regard as occult forces and things that cannot
be observed and are not detectable by ordinary experimental
means, people postulate them, use them as the basis for research,
and eventually you do come up with something that can then be
assimilated within naturalistic science.

Q. And the intelligent design proponents don't
give much detail about who the supernatural actor, the designer
is. Is that correct?

Q. The goal is to have a supernatural designer
considered as a possible scientific explanation?

A. Well, it's intelligent designer, and I think
the idea here is that intelligence is something that cannot be
reduced to naturalistic causes. Right? So there is a sense in
which the idea of intelligence itself is taken to be somewhat
supernatural here.

Q. To allow for this extra-natural or supernatural
causation, we have to change the ground rules of science as they
are currently understood by the scientific community. Is that
correct?

A. Well, actually, I don't think they have to
change the ground rules of science. Pennock thinks they do.

A. I think the ground rules of science are
indifferent on this metaphysical question of naturalism versus
supernaturalism. This is why I think it's kind of a red herring
in a way to talk about this in relation to science.

Q. -- about what you meant about the fundamental
differences in orientation between evolution and intelligent
design. And I want you to focus on the very end of your answer on
Page 115 starting on Line 8.

A. And so you -- go ahead. Sorry. I was just
trying to guess your question.

Q. Well, let me read your answer here. And so that
-- you're talking about giving different orientations as to what
science is about. You're talking about intelligent design.

And then you say, So that would obviously involve
changing the ground rules of science because there is a sense in
which you would change the scope of what you're talking about,
because if what you're really concerned about is the nature of
intelligent design, as such, with life being one example of that
as opposed to being interested in the nature of life regardless
of whether it's intelligent design or not, right, you're going to
have to have different ways of pursuing the inquiry. Did I read
that correctly?

Q. No. And then the next question was, Okay, so
you -- you agree that intelligent design aspires to change the
ground rules of science? And your answer was, Yeah, I think
that's fair to say. I think -- I think -- they certainly -- yes.
Did I read that correctly?

Q. If you could turn to Page 175 of your
deposition. I'm going to read your answer there starting on Line
23. You say, I'm not doubting that methodological naturalism has
worked for science and that it's largely responsible for lots of
science that we've got, maybe even most of that we've got. Did I
read that correctly?

A. Well, that's an age-old question, but there
have been paranormal experiments. And even when one was thinking
about gravity as a potentially occult force, right, that was the
big challenge of the experimental imagination, to figure out how
can we measure something that seems to be kind of, you know,
invisible, you know, kind of impalpable.

So this is, in fact -- this is, in fact, one of
the prompts to develop very subtle kinds of experiments and get
at things in indirect ways. So the idea that something is
supernatural doesn't preclude it from any kind of experimental
testing. It just makes it kind of tricky, and it often takes a
long time to do it.

Q. Well, how would you design a test to test for
the intelligent designer, the affirmative test?

A. Well, I take it that -- and this refers to what
I meant of the sense in which I meant changing the ground rules
of science. I think this business of design -- a design detector,
you know, the kind of -- the sort of filter argument that Dembski
gives, because at the moment the design detector is used
primarily as kind of a device for detecting fraud and things like
that in artifacts, whereas, in fact, what I was thinking about
when I said the remark about changing the ground rules of science
was to actually say this kind of design detector thing could be
expanded as a tool in science more generally. And that's the kind
of thing that I had in mind. I didn't mean changing the ground
rules of science in the sense of replacing our normal modes of
testability with entirely new modes of testability.

Q. Well, but if you allowed intelligent design
into science, you would lead to a different conception of
science. Is that --

A. I think what is true is that the sciences would
be reconfigured so that the notion of design would be taken as
kind of a literal unifying concept, where design in the sense of
organisms and in the sense of artifacts and in the sense of
computers or whatever would be treated as design all in the same
sense, which is not how they tend to be treated now. Biology is
sort of studied as one subject and the study of artifacts and
technology is something else.

A. Well, it would change the way -- yes, it would
probably blur the distinction, for example, between life and
nonlife more substantially. There would be a lot of implications,
I think. But it wouldn't change testability. It wouldn't change
the fundamental kind of methodological principles of science
which are indifferent to the naturalism, supernatural
distinction.

Q. And is it fair to say that you think the
National Academy of Science's definition of a scientific theory
is too static and too restrictive?

A. And this is -- remind me again. I'm sure I've
commented on it, but can you remind me what that definition
is?

Q. Yes. The definition is a well-substantiated
explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can
incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses.

A. Yes, I believe I objected to
"well-substantiated" in that definition.

Q. And your counter-definition is a little bit
different, and it would be an explanatory conception --

Q. So you would remove "well-substantiated" to
allow not-so-well established theories like intelligent
design?

A. Well, otherwise, I don't see how any new theory
would ever get a foothold in this definition. No theory is born
well-substantiated.

Q. Now, you've spent a fair bit of your time on
this particular point about how difficult it is under the current
-- I think you would say overly dogmatic naturalistic paradigm of
science for new theories to break in.

A. May I correct you? I think that's a
mischaracterization. I don't think that naturalism is, itself,
the kind of -- the sort of stultifying atmosphere. I think it has
actually more to do with sort of sociological, political, and
economic factors when it gets right down to it.

Q. But as I understood your testimony -- and,
please, you know, correct me if I'm mischaracterizing, because I
certainly don't intend to do that. I mean, as I understood it,
you're saying that scientists are not really open to different
ways of thinking such as presented by intelligent design?

A. In fact, yes. In fact, as -- this is, in a way,
engrained in their training, and it's something that is very well
remarked upon in our literature. It's called normal science. It's
the whole idea of thinking within a paradigm. That's, in fact,
how you make advances in very narrow, specialized technical
fields. So, in a sense, it has a heuristic value itself, this
kind of narrowness, that makes people unopen, but it isn't
everything.

Q. Right. But I also recall you saying that
scientists are not the person -- not the people to best define
science because they're within that paradigm and can't think
outside of it?

Q. And your point is that what you need are
philosophers of science and sociologists of science and
scientific epistemologists to really be able to define what
science is properly?

A. Yes. And it's happened. It's happened in legal
cases like this, for example. The definitions are taken from
philosophers. And it's very common practice, yes.

Q. And you also said that the scientific
association, I think you called them -- you said the elites at
the National Academy of Science make it difficult for new
theories to be accepted?

A. Well, I don't know if that particular
organization is to be targeted in some conspiratorial fashion,
but I think that the way science is organized generally, if you
go across the professional associations, the ways in which, you
know, peer review operates and journals, you look at the way in
which education takes place within science and how one gets in
and how one gets jobs in it, if you put that all together, that
does make it very difficult for new ideas to catch on.

Q. So, in some sense, you would say there's a
prejudice between the scientists, the scientific associations,
the peer review, against new scientific theories being
accepted?

A. A prejudice in -- yes. I mean, I don't know how
cognitive I want to interpret that word "prejudice." Again, I
don't know if there's, like, vendettas against particular
viewpoints. But I do think that the overall -- you might say
structural effect of all these things is, yes, to bias one toward
a kind of conformist position on a taken-for-granted, established
science.

Q. So it's difficult but it's not impossible for
new theories to be accepted?

Q. So, in fact, I mean, the 20th Century and the
late 20th Century give us many examples of theories that have
been accepted within the scientific community. So, I mean, you
testified to Dobzhansky's --

Q. Right. His view of really -- I mean, that was
the Darwinian revolution that we're talking about here?

A. Yes. But what he did -- yes, but this was done
by writing a book that brought together different biologists to
see themselves as traveling under a common rubric. I mean, it
wasn't something that required a large research grant or
something. By today's standards, it was still very much little
science that he was doing that had this big effect.

Q. Absolutely. It was ignored for, what, 40 or 50
years before it was finally accepted by the scientific
establishment in the 1960s?

A. Well, that's right. And all along, though,
there were people -- there was a current of people still pursuing
it. So even though it was never any dominant position, there was
kind of a -- it wasn't so discontinuous, it was just that the
people who were pursuing it were largely on the margins. And then
eventually, you know, they came to the surface as new evidence
and so forth came in. That's certainly true.

Q. Right. So there was a hypothesis, there were
people who were advancing this, it was not accepted, not
accepted, and eventually it did become accepted as a theory
within the scientific community?

A. Yes, because they did have a critical mass of
workers in that area who were able to pursue it, even though they
weren't being taken all that seriously for a long time. It wasn't
that, you know, you had three guys doing it and then when they
stopped pushing it, it disappeared. There was always kind of an
undercurrent rumbling with regard to this theory until then
people caught on to it when they saw new evidence arise.

Q. Right. So they spent 30 years, and finally they
convinced the scientific community that this was a valid theory
that should be accepted?

A. And these people had academic posts who were
pursuing this. Right? So there was an institutional substructure
that was supporting this minority research. And that's a very
important part of the story. Right? Because if there is no
institutional substructure, right, if there are no, you know,
people studying this and following it even though they know most
people don't believe it, it's never going to have a chance to
reach that point.

Q. Because for a long time people thought that, in
fact, ulcers were caused by stress, which led to stomach acid,
which led to the ulcers. And now, in fact, this year's 2005 Nobel
prize in medicine went to the people who advanced that
theory.

Q. So there are scientific theories that can sort
of crack the scientific establishment and become accepted?

A. Sure, but these people have -- you know, they
have institutional settings where they can continue the research.
Right? And I'm sure -- I mean, with the plate tectonics there was
some hostility, but with some of these others, I wonder if there
was really, you know, any kind of ideological hostility to the
pursuing of this alternative research. Because in this sense, it
isn't quite the same as intelligent design, which I take it to be
the point of the examples.

Q. Well, I mean, the point is that you can get
accepted in the scientific community. It takes time, it takes
work, it takes research, and it takes effort to convince your
colleague in the scientific community, but it can be done?

A. Yes. And it takes institutional presence, and
it takes the ability to be able to have students who follow up on
leads that you make, and those students have to be able to get
jobs and so forth. There are all those things, too. They're part
of the sociology.

This is why the history and philosophy and
sociology of science need to be considered together. You can't
just separate out, as it were, the philosophical status of these
theories and see how they change over time. You have to look at
the institutional structures.

Q. But intelligent design hasn't convinced the
scientific community yet, has it?

A. Well, there's a chicken and egg question here.
Right? I mean, you have to put the institutional -- you have to
enable these people to actually have enough exposure, right, so
that they can get people interested in the idea. And so people
who, let's say, don't start off with, you know, whatever baggage
they happen to have get interested in it and develop it in new
directions and take the idea forward so it's not just seen as a
kind of cultish thing. And that's very important, and that
doesn't happen spontaneously.

A. Well, if we're talking about getting people
interested in this kind of idea -- see, intelligent design has
certain disadvantages that these other theories don't have, and
that's the kind of ideological resistance to it because it's seen
as, you know, overly religious and all the rest of it. And so
there is a kind of -- in that sense, there is a kind of prejudice
that makes it more difficult for a theory like that to get some
kind of leverage.

Q. So intelligent design has not convinced the
science community, and you're here saying, well, you know, we've
got to sort of fertilize the field and make sure that it can be
taught to students so that they're more open-minded to this?

A. Well, it seems to me that you're not going to
-- it's not going to happen otherwise. And --

Q. You know, I'm not aware of transposons or plate
tectonics being forced on students before it was accepted by the
scientific community.

A. Yes, but those are much more specialized kinds
of entities and theories and so forth that exist, roughly
speaking, within established disciplines. Here we're talking
about a sort of scientific movement, as it were, that part of
what it wants to do is to reconfigure the face of science.
Right?

And, in a sense, the neo-Darwinian synthesis
covers a lot of ground. It's a very sort of big, broad picture.
And, in a sense, intelligent design is offering a kind of
competitor at that level. So it's a different ball game from what
you've been describing.

Q. And what you're saying is that it's got no
chance in the scientific community, the only chance it has is for
a federal judge to order that it be taught in the schools?

Q. And what you're telling this Court is that we
need that kind of revolution because the dominant paradigm is not
letting intelligent design in?

MR. GILLEN: Objection to the characterization of
his testimony. I don't believe he said any such thing.

THE COURT: Well, the question is couched in terms
of you're telling us, and he can deny that. I don't know that
that's an accurate characterization of his testimony, but the way
the question is phrased, it's a fair question on cross, so the
objection is overruled. You may answer that.

A. Well, the thing here is that you need to have
revolutions when, in fact, the science is dominated by one
paradigm. Right? That's the presupposition of a revolution, that
the only way in which you're going to actually get any kind of
alternative viewpoint is by displacing the dominant one, because
you're not imagining science to be a naturally pluralistic
field.

You don't need a revolution if you had a kind of
pluralistic playing field of science where you have lots of
different theories of roughly equal stature. But, rather, in this
case, with the neo-Darwinian synthesis, you have one very
dominant theory that monopolizes all the resources.

In the normal course of things, you would just
have to wait for that theory to kill itself before another one is
going to come about.

Q. And so you are saying that, in fact, there is a
very dominant theory today, neo-Darwinian synthesis, and in order
to crack that, in order to allow intelligent design in, you need
this revolution?

A. Well, that's not quite -- I mean, I think that
if intelligent design proves its merit, that will, in fact,
happen. But I'm not actually saying -- I'm not calling for a
revolution at the moment.

What I am saying is, I would like to see some
opposition thinking to force students to think, well, look, is
this the only way of looking at the nature of life? Maybe there's
an alternative way of looking at it. And not only that, it's a
way that can fit in with other things, such as other things that
are designed.

I mean, thinking about biology as if it were like
technology, which is part of the implication of the sort of thing
Dembski is doing, is kind of interesting, and it does put a
different slant on what the nature of life is and actually has
some precedent in the history of science with regard to issues of
mechanism and so forth, and this is where Newton and all that
comes in.

So it's not like some weirdo theory that I've just
picked out of a hat. It's one where you could do a nice
historical backstory to.

Q. I want to switch gears and talk a little bit
about intelligent design itself. Now, you said that intelligent
design is a relatively young science?

A. In this current phase, right. It has a long
historical backstory, very little of which it's actually
appropriated up to this point. In its current form, it's pretty
new.

Q. So it doesn't have its views, its conical views
worked out very well on all aspects of the theory?

A. But there are some that are being developed,
that are quite clearly being developed, like the complex
specified information, explanatory filter thing of Dembski. I
think he's the one that, you know, one would look for in terms of
developing so-called foundations, you might say, for this
science. So it is going on, and there is some discernible shape
to it.

Q. We'll come back to Dembski. But you've earlier
used the term "normal science." And that would refer to the
neo-Darwinian synthesis?

A. That's right. It's the way science is done
normally under the dominant paradigm.

A. Yes. It's not normal science. I mean, you can't
have normal science until you have a paradigm that's been
sufficiently flushed out that you can sort of talk about normal
forms of research. At the moment, ID is basically laying out
foundations and then trying to come out with some exemplary
phenomena.

Q. Let's talk about those foundations for
intelligent design. I think -- would you agree that ID consists
primarily of the views of Michael Behe and William Dembski?

A. No. He's primarily a guy who develops
theoretical foundations. Okay? He's not a biologist, he's a
mathematician by training.

Q. And you would agree that people have suggested
counter-examples to his hypothesis and that he's failed to
address those?

A. Well, he has tried to address them. I mean,
it's a very -- it's a very kind of tough game he's playing,
because the idea is to come up with a notion of design that
cannot be reduced to either necessity or chance. And so the
counter-examples are along the lines of saying, well, you know,
this could be seen as chance or this could be seen as necessity,
where is that middle space that you're going for.

But that's kind of to be expected, it seems to me,
given that if he is able to come up with this, this would be
quite a radical departure from, let's say, the way we think about
evolution, which is a combination of necessity and chance.

Q. If we can -- if he can come up with this. But
as you say, his failure to address some of the counter-examples
to this very difficult hypothesis that he's making, I mean, in
your estimation right now is really damning?

A. Well, no, he's been trying. I mean, it's just
he doesn't satisfy all of his critics.

Q. But the fact that he has failed to address some
of the counter-examples is damning to his theory?

A. I mean, he's trying. He doesn't do it to
everyone's satisfaction. But he is -- I have seen responses to
his work -- his responses to his critics' work, and he is
trying.

I mean, there aren't a lot of -- see, if there
were more people working in this area, you know, there would be
kind of support and there might be some way of developing this a
little faster and on more different fronts, but he's pretty much
doing it himself.

Q. I'm going to start reading with the question on
Line 2. Quote, But what is your understanding of these
counter-examples? Is it that they have -- that critics have taken
these counter-examples and used some probabilistic method to
determine what happened to them, or have they been raised as
examples that Dr. Dembski needs to apply his method to to show
that it works at all? And your answer is, Yes, the latter. I
mean, but is this damning? Yes, I mean, I agree with you.

A. No, no, I'm not referring to that it's damning.
I mean that the latter -- I'm not saying that the fact that they
have raised counter-examples to -- suggests his method doesn't
work at all. I am agreeing that that's the nature of the
counter-example. I am not agreeing to it being damning.

Q. But you're saying that Dembski needs to apply
his method, and he hasn't done that to the counter -- he hasn't
applied his method to the counter-examples, and that's
damning?

A. Let me just read this. Can you restate the
question now? I've sort of -- restate the question, please, now
that I've understood what I've said.

Q. That Dembski's failure to address these
counter-examples is damning to his theory, at least for right
now.

A. Well, actually, I tend to interpret the word
"damming" as pretty final. But, you know, damning for right now
sounds to me like a contradiction in terms.

When I say, yes, I agree with you, what I'm
agreeing to is that you gave two alternatives in your question,
and I'm agreeing to the latter of those alternatives. I'm not
agreeing to your subsequent statement of it being damning. That's
what I'm doing there.

A. That's the order of the words, but, you know,
in the course of speech, right, it's -- you know, it may not
actually be as it seems.

Q. So what's printed on the page may be different
than what we're reading?

A. No, that's not what I'm saying. But, look, the
way I answered the question, right, I gave, you know, whatever,
three or four short remarks. But, I mean, clearly -- because,
look, the word "damning" is very final, and I don't believe it's
damning.

Q. All right. Well, let's look at your next --
let's look at your next answer and the question that was posed to
you right after that. Isn't the challenge to Dr. Dembski right
now that your method is useless? And your answer was -- and I'm
going to read this and please follow along -- The fact that you
bring up counter-examples doesn't mean that it doesn't explain
anything. Right? I mean, in fact, the way the general verdict on
somebody like Dembski is that, you know, it sort of leads -- it's
kind of -- it doesn't quite fit the full range of things that we
normally consider design. It tends to include certain things that
we don't want to call design, and it tends to exclude other
things that we do want to call design. So in that sense, the
mathematical parameters aren't being set quite right, and that
might indicate some fundamental flaw in the way he's
conceptualizing the problem. Okay? That's what the state of play
is with him.

A. Yes, I would think that that's kind of what the
received opinion is at the moment on his work.

A. No, no. I mean, no, that's true, it does not.
There may be reasons for that, but --

Q. Well, and one of the reasons -- let me ask if
you agree with me that one of the reasons it's not in peer
review, because from the standpoint of the way in which normal
science is conducted, Behe's work is not very useful?

A. Well, it all depends what you mean. I think he
is trying -- I mean, in a sense, making some common cause with
Dembski is helpful here and, in fact, is to be expected that
there will be this kind of -- you know, Behe can't do everything
himself either. Right? I mean, he's a biochemist, and he has
certain kinds of specialties, and he really needs to be in
contact with people in other areas who are sympathetic to this in
order for it to really take off. But he's certainly doing the
best he can.

And I really think this is, again, another one of
these institutional problems, that you can't just expect one
person to come up with a whole research program fully blown from
his head. I mean, typically this involves having students -- you
know, I mean, starting journals, getting the work published and
circulated and all the rest of it, and you do need a critical
mass of people for that.

Q. And so you would agree that right now Professor
Behe and irreducible complexity have neither robust peer review
nor a robust research program?

A. Well, I mean, he has as robust a research
program as he possibly can under the circumstances, it seems to
me. And the same would go for Dembski. They're doing the best
they can with the minimal resources that they have.

And with regard to peer review, you know, I think
that one has to, you know, look at that very cautiously. Yes,
strictly speaking, there isn't that much peer-reviewed stuff by
him, but, you know, again, there -- there are institutional
issues here, it seems to me.

Q. And you're not aware of the research that
Professor Behe is actually doing on intelligent design?

A. I'm not a specialist in his work, so I don't
have, like, up-to-date information about him.

Q. And you haven't read his testimony from the
trial last week, have you?

Q. So you don't -- do you recall what he said
about his research program on intelligent design?

A. I only recall the kinds of questions -- he was
asked to explain, you know, the irreducibility of the cell and
all this kind of stuff. I don't recall. But then I didn't commit
the transcript to testimony -- excuse me, to memory.

Q. But as you sit here, you're not aware of what
research Professor Behe is doing?

A. Yes, I see. So the idea being that I'm saying
-- he's saying it's -- you know, if it's not natural selection,
it's therefore intelligent design. Okay. But Miller does the same
thing in reverse when he tests Behe's experiment.

I mean, there's a sense in which this kind of
debate tends to have this character where one side says, well,
look, if you show that the thing is not irreducibly complex,
therefore it's natural selection, and so he plays the game the
other way around. So there's a sense in which he's -- he's hardly
alone in being guilty in this sin of having dichotomous
thinking.

Q. Well, let's talk about that sort of first part
of Behe's argument, the irreducible complexity. And there, in
fact, have been challenges made to his assertion that there are
cells or organisms that are irreducibly complex. Correct?

Q. And, in fact, as happened last week, Professor
Behe was confronted with -- I think it was 58 peer-reviewed
journals and a number of textbooks that talked about various
evolutionary pathways for the immune system. So the scientists
have actually come up with possible natural explanations where
Professor Behe said there were none because it's irreducibly
complex.

Q. Okay. So natural selection -- well, that may be
his target, but that's not exactly what evolution says.
Evolution, if you'll agree with me, evolution doesn't say that
natural selection alone is the mechanism of change?

Q. I am. But as I understand it, his irreducible
complexity argument is that, in fact, some things are so complex
that there couldn't be a natural explanation for them or a
natural pathway.

A. No, what he's saying is that you could never
reach -- you could never reach the state of the cell being in its
sort of integrated whole just through processes of natural
selection, you know, to random mutation and so forth. It would
take too long to get to that state and that the earth isn't old
enough, as it were, to allow natural selection to work for the
cell to get into that state. That's what his argument is.

Q. So he's saying, I can't imagine how this could
have happened naturally in science?

A. No, that's not the same thing. He's actually
making a -- you know, a quite specific statement, you know, where
he's calculating how long would it take through natural selection
for this particular cell to develop as it is, and he's saying
it's too long.

A. It's not merely a negative argument, it's
actually a potential test of it. In a sense, his argument is
designed as a test of natural selection because, look, even if
you can give potential evolutionary explanations, you still have
to explain the time frame in which it happened, and that hasn't
been done yet by the evolutionists.

Q. So what he's saying is that evolutionists
haven't fully explained these theories?

Q. So you agree that the absence of naturalistic
explanations is not a proper test to show the supernatural in
biology?

A. No, in fact, there's a sense in which this
whole debate is very wrong headed. I mean, in a sense, both
should just be allowed to develop their research programs rather
than to score premature knock-out punches in simple-minded
fashion. And that goes for both sides again.

A. But, look, there is more to it than that.
Right? I mean, it's not just that they -- they're not just
presenting negative evidence, they're sort of showing what it is
about the cell that appears to be designed, et cetera, et cetera,
that provides a kind of prima facie positive story, as well.
Okay?

I mean, but it is true that these guys define
their position very much in opposition to the evolutionists. And
I do -- yes, there's a sense in which it would be better if there
was a little space between these two so they could develop their
programs independently.

Q. But still, coming back, I mean, the assertion
for design is really just a conclusory proposition?

A. No, there is more to it than the conclusions
that are drawn on the basis of negative evidence about
evolution.

Q. I'm sorry, I had the wrong page here. Page 170,
beginning on Line 5 -- well, let's see, you say, Dembski has a
similar problem. And the question is, So both of them have this
problem? And then you say, Yes, and then we elucidate. The
question is, Okay, but then even granted your point, which I do,
I'm still troubled by the idea that even if you would eliminate
all the, for example, natural hypotheses that have been asserted,
one could make a positive case for action by an intelligent
designer, and I'm trying to understand how that follows, which I
think is a conclusory proposition.

MR. GILLEN: Objection, Your Honor. I think if he's
going to read the answer, he's got to read the whole answer, not
just the beginning.

THE COURT: Well, he has the opportunity to read
the answer and answer it in context and answer in the context of
his entire answer, so you feel free to answer the question as it
relates to your entire answer or any other answers that you gave.
That's understood.

Q. And based on this argument, there's never going
to be a decisive moment where intelligent design wins by default
simply because it shows that natural explanations have not yet
been shown. Is that correct?

Q. But simply showing that natural explanations
are inadequate is never going to prove intelligent design?

A. Not by itself, no, but that's true of any
research program. You don't establish your own position by just
negating another.

Q. And since you can never eliminate all the
possible natural alternatives, some people have objected to the
idea of inference to the best explanation as being a method in
science. Do you agree with that?

Q. And you're not aware of intelligent design
being empirically tested?

A. Well, it is a bit early in the research program
for them to actually come up with their own original tests. I
mean, as I said earlier this morning, you have to wait some time
for the research program to get elaborated so you actually see
what would be some interesting test cases where intelligent
design is really saying something interestingly different from
some natural selection-based explanation, for example.

A. Well, actually, that is kind of the point of
having a design detector. Right? And this is where Dembski comes
in, right, because Dembski is trying to put some kind of specific
mathematical parameters on what would count as design. Okay? And
so there is an attempt to actually nail down that concept in some
way that you could then tell whether something was designed or
not.

A. Well, I mean, there's a sense in which designer
-- a design isn't necessarily a commitment to some sort of
absolute God. I mean, you know, if what you're thinking about is
how do you disprove God, well, yes. But that's not really what
the issue is here. It's basically saying whether design is
present or not.

And then the issue is having some kind of criteria
that you can apply unequivocally to be able to make that
distinction. That's the goal of the project, right, at the end of
the day. And so the issue is nailing down a sufficiently clear
notion of design.

Q. But if you never hypothesize about the identity
or the attributes of the designer, how could you ever possibly
disprove that?

A. It's not at all clear to me -- I mean, it
depends what attributes, exactly, you're talking about. Right? I
mean --

Q. The intelligent design proponents refuse to
hypothesize about any attributes, do they?

A. It depends what -- the design of what are we
talking about here. Because we're talking about design of cells,
right, there's going to be one kind of design-based explanation.
If you've got design of artifacts, it's going to be another kind
of design-based explanation.

A. I'm not sure that's quite the way to put it.
What you want to show is that this is design as opposed to having
been the product of chance and necessity, that is kind of what
the project is about, and coming up with a clear criteria where
you can make the difference between a chance and necessity
explanation and a design-based explanation. And that's kind of
the conceptual issue that people like Dembski are struggling with
at the moment so that, in fact, you could say that this is design
or not design, because they don't believe everything is
designed.